Paulwarn: My take is to agree with you. Wells had a book out and they traced the Y chromosome for his earlier work.
He appears to be the National geographic lead man on the project. NG is grooming him for a "New Explorer" status. Sort of a break in the new generation attempt. The tracing of "Y" appears to be his prefferred method. This would of course be a procedure that could be performed by DNAP and many others. The project does not appear to be designed for a mass sampling, "one hundred thousand samples" but I am sure NG will be glad to sell kits to any purchaser in excess of that number. That way Doctor Wells can cherry pick the submissions to get a more representative (global)sampling, that will allow a greater geographic spread for the samples included for study in the program. Wouldn't be much of a test if all the people in Rochester NY were the first 100,000 to donate the 100 bucks. I don't think this would suit the purposes of the show Doctor Wells is putting together, as he wishes to show all humankind is derived from a few individuals who survived the last global disaster. (or spaceship stranding - or genetic experiment of %^&&*(&% 3rd grade biology class!)
I mean if you have to pay $100.00 to be in the survey, a lot of people will not participate. I guess though that it will be reassuring to know that a National Geographic subscriber is likely descended from a progenitor in Africa from 66 thousand years ago.
It's an interesting vehicle for a show, but I feel from the reading I've perused today that Doctor Wells might be more interested in finding "Y" to Africa rhan dealing with all the possible steps inbetween.
On the other hand, they could do it right and call Doctor Frudakis!
Stakddek
